The WSJ recently reported that Apple is planning to replace
Google Maps with its own mapping app as the preloaded mapping utility on
iPhones and iPads later this year. If the launch of Siri-enabled searching
raised flags for Google, red alerts should now be going off in Menlo Park. As
an avid iPhone user, I find the developments in the battle between Apple and
Google for mobile computing dominance fascinating. While the Android platform
is steadily gaining market share, Apple is obviously a major player in the
smart phone space, and control over mapping has major implications for the mobile
searching and advertising businesses. WSJ correspondents Vascellaro and Efrati
note that "mobile ads associated with maps or locations are estimated to
account for about 25% of the roughly $2.5 billion spent on mobile ads in 2012,"
and this figure will only grow as the number of location-aware software apps increases
over time. Apple will ultimately push mobile app developers to embed its proprietary
mapping technology.
Apple's incursion into Google's turf stemmed from tensions
that emerged since Google unveiled the Android platform. Apple was concerned
about the data Google was gathering from Maps users, and Google didn't like how
Apple insisted on controlling the "look and feel" of the technology
by incorporating only select features. In turn, Google denied Apple several
tools for its devices. To this day, I'm astonished by the lack of a decent GPS
turn-by-turn navigation function on the iPhone.
The friendly, cooperative days between Google and Apple,
during which the latter's products used to feature the former's software
(Google Search, YouTube, etc.), are becoming even more of a distant memory.
Link to the WSJ article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304543904577398502695522974.html?mod=djemTEW_t
No comments:
Post a Comment